The Trouble with Authors
by Fairady
Summary: The fangirls hated Shikamaru. There is no other explanation.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Wish? Yes. Own? Hell no.

Warnings: Some minor sporking and mine own humor. Don't be too offended, I'm sporking equally.

Notes: Yet another concept that's been done before, but is again something I couldn't not do. The characters like the fourth wall where it is, they really do, but some things just demand that it be broken down.

The Trouble with Authors  
by Fairady

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The fangirls hated him.

"Shi-ka-maru!" Ino growled through gritted teeth. "Stop fighting it and ask me to marry you. I've got an appointment for a manicure and if I miss that because of your stubborn ass-" Ino trailed off with a glare that spoke of tortures best left unsaid. He was well acquainted with both the look and the tortures implied by it.

Shikamaru didn't know why the fangirls hated him so much. He hadn't actually _done_ anything in the series to warrant their ire. Had he?

"Good luck with that," Temari snorted, jabbing the file she was using on her nails at the blonde woman. "That asshole never makes his mind up in less than sixty chapters. You should know better than to make appointments when the fans want to write fics with him," Temari rolled her eyes in that peculiar way she had that meant she was calling on all sorts of gods, ancestors, and incorporeal beings for patience. Or vengeance, Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure. She turned back to her nails and offhandedly added, "Besides, he's going to marry me."

He hadn't hit any of the pretty boys the fangirls swooned over. He hadn't even really insulted any of them. Well, out loud he hadn't and that's all that mattered. So it couldn't be a revenge thing for slighting a popular character.

"You bitch!" Ino was a good actor. Give her the outline of a mission, a few guidelines, and you'd suddenly have a completely different woman in front of you. She used that ability to it's fullest as she swung towards Temari with overblown and totally out of character fury. "He's mine!"

Wait. The fangirls weren't all _Hidan_ fans, were they? He was so screwed if they were.

"Finally," Temari dropped her file and squared up with Ino. She wasn't nearly as good of an actor as Ino, but few people looked for characterization in a fight scene. Or cat fight. Neither of them were reaching for the weapons they would normally use in an actual fight. "Bring it on Ho!"

Shikamaru didn't know why the fangirls hated him. All he knew was that they did so with a passion that almost made him want to weep. As Ino launched herself at a smirking Temari and the two women began to pull each other's hair Shikamaru decided to give it up.

The coffee table broke under the combined weight of the women sending wood everywhere. A shelf buckled as Ino sent Temari flying, the scrolls and boxes on it getting flattened as she stood back up. A picture of his team flew past Shikamaru's head and embedded itself into the kitchen wall.

The fangirls hated him for some reason. It was the only explanation he could come up with for why they'd put him through this torture. Shikamaru let his head thunk down onto the kitchen table as the urn Chouji gave him for his birthday exploded into tiny pieces of ceramic. "So troublesome."

Shikamaru wants every author to know that he'd hate them if it weren't so troublesome.

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Shikamaru wants all the authors to know he'd hate them if it weren't too troublesome.

Ino would like it if the authors gave Temari a script because she's shit at adlibbing.

Temari would like the authors to know she'll actually follow a script if it doesn't look like something from a cheesy soap opera.

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	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Wish? Yes. Own? Hell no.

Warnings: Some minor sporking and mine own humor. Don't be too offended, I'm sporking equally.

Notes: Shikamaru may never realize it's not hate. The fans love him and they show that love with torture. -laughs evolly-

The Trouble with Authors  
by Fairady

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Temari and Ino had steadily worked their way through his living room to his bathroom and were currently engaged in destroying his bedroom. Feeling that the author's attention was elsewhere Shikamaru did the first smart thing he'd done since the fic started. He ran for it.

The current fic focused more on the women's 'rivalry' for his affections, and he'd only had two full sentences through the whole damn thing. Shikamaru wasn't an idiot. He knew a yuri fic when he was set up as the plot device and didn't want to be anywhere near his apartment when Ino and Temari 'accidentally' fell onto his bed.

He somehow managed to sneak out through his tiny-ass kitchen window. The fit was a lot tighter than he remembered from a similar attempt a month earlier. Damn, he was either going to have to find a place with a bigger window or stop eating so many potato chips.

Grunting, Shikamaru yanked himself through and fell three stories. He twisted easily and landed on his feet. Free at last! Shaking his head, Shikamaru turned southward. The sky didn't have a single cloud in it so there was no point in going to one of his usual spots. It was lunchtime anyway and Chouji was probably hungry.

With vague plans forming Shikamaru walked away from his place. He had practice in ignoring the curious looks people were giving the screams and threats still coming out of the open kitchen window, and the man who'd just come out of said window. He was finally free of that fic and the fangirl writing it. He planned on enjoying that bit of freedom while it lasted, because if there was one thing he'd learned early on it was that there were always sequels.

A familiar voice stopped him in his tracks, "Shikamaru!"

"Damn," Shikamaru briefly debated running for it, but quickly ruled that option out. Sakura tended to show her displeasure in having to run down her prey in a painful way after all. He turned and sighed as she stopped in front of him, "Yeah?"

"You free Saturday?" Sakura pulled a thin book out of her pouch, rifling a few pages before stopping. A small pencil appeared from somewhere else and she looked at him expectantly. "I'm meeting Hinata right now and won't be free until then."

"What?" Shikamaru took a few prudent steps away from the building. He could plainly hear furniture breaking and wouldn't put being hit by something sailing out the open window as impossible.

"For the fic thing," At his continued blank look Sakura sighed and tipped the book so he could see it. It was a monthly appointment book. The boxes for the next two days had been marked with 'Hinata.' "I heard a fangirl is brewing up a fic for you and me, but I'm booked until Saturday."

"Wait," Shikamaru almost recoiled in horror, but that would take too much effort. He settled for blinking instead. "You schedule these crazy fangirl things!?"

"Yes, and I'll take that as a 'Yes, I'm perfectly free, Sakura-san'," Sakura rolled her eyes before turning back to her book, pencil scratching as she wrote. "You should try it sometime. The fangirls are much nicer when you start to accommodate them, and I can even get some time set aside just for myself."

"You sold your soul to them," Shikamaru stated. "Just so they'd be 'nicer?'"

"I sold my soul for twenty-four hours of not being used in a fic," Sakura corrected book snapping shut. "Weekly."

"Weekly?" Shikamaru abruptly forgot his apartment, the women in it, the fangirls causing it, and pretty much everything else at that one word. One day a week completely free of this madness.

"Weekly," Sakura repeated with a smirk. "That's better than I get with Tsunade-sama, and a pretty good deal for my soul."

The idea had tremendous appeal. Except-

Shikamaru snorted, not daring to hope, and jerked his head back to his apartment where the screams were turning into something else. "You think that'd actually work for me?"

"Probably not," Sakura smirked as the book disappeared. "But I've also found that a schedule keeps the wrong people from meeting up at the worst times," She said with her own wry nod towards the building that was now projecting moans. "You wouldn't believe how much trouble I get into when Gaara and Sasuke both show up at the same time," she paused to let that mental picture sink in for a bit. Shikamaru wondered if that's what had leveled one of the more popular bathhouses last week. "Anyway, I'm already late to meet Hinata. I'll see you Saturday."

"Yeah, yeah," Shikamaru watched the woman walk off before continuing down the street. Working with the fangirls hadn't occurred to him before, mostly because he was still trying to figure out a way to get rid of them. Figured it'd be Sakura who would first hit on a practical solution. It sucked that it'd never work with him though.

He was probably better off getting blindsided by this stuff. Now he _knew_ that he was going to have to spend the weekend showing off his IQ with Sakura, and the thought of that much work was putting him off his lunch. "Really troublesome..."

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Shikamaru wants every author to know that he'd still hate them if it weren't so troublesome.

Sakura would like to announce that in the interest of being efficient all authors will now have to go through her agent to make appointments.

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	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Wish? Yes. Own? Hell no.

Warnings: Some minor sporking and mine own humor. Don't be too offended, I'm sporking equally.

Notes: Over? Not by a long shot, just delayed by other interests and school and work and my own stupidity. By the way, stitches suck.

The Trouble with Authors  
by Fairady

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Shikamaru found Chouji at the new place that'd just opened up. The name escaped him, and it wasn't until he sat down across from his friend that he realized the vagueness of what the place was meant he'd fallen into another fic. "Dammit."

Chouji smiled. It was sympathetic _and_ elated, something very few people could pull off. He didn't begrudge it to Chouji though. There weren't nearly enough fangirls for his best friend despite the fact that Chouji was the best guy the Village had ever produced.

Biased? Hell, no. It was just a simple fact.

"So, I heard about Ino and Temari," Chouji picked a piece of meat off of the grill. The shop was gaining depth and Shikamaru was relieved to see they were actually going to be fed in this fic. Chouji would've never forgiven the fangirl if he was in a restaurant and never got to actually eat anything.

"Man, a sequel already?" Shikamaru flipped a few vegetables and something that looked like steak onto the grill. "They were just starting to go at it when I left. This fangirl works fast."

Being pulled back into the fic sucked, but Shikamaru didn't actually mind working with Chouji. They were best friends after all, and usually they could get through a fic just by doing everything they'd normally do. Talk, eat, watch clouds. Being in a fic with Chouji almost made Shikamaru think the fangirls didn't really hate him.

"I think this is an epilogue actually," Chouji shrugged pulling out a bag of chips to eat while the food cooked.

"Yeah?" The meat smelled like chicken, but still looked like steak. Shikamaru wondered if it would taste like shrimp or something else. Whatever, he knew it would taste like a piece of heaven if he ate it from Chouji's lips.

Shikamaru stiffened at the alien thought, "-the hell?"

Ok. So, it was going to be one of _those_ fics. Shikamaru grumbled to himself but didn't fight the odd prompts being placed in his head. Fighting with the fangirls when they had romance on the mind only ever led to angst fics, and he really hated those. Better to just suck it up and move on.

Besides, it was Chouji, and weirdly romantic thoughts aside, Shikamaru still preferred working with his best friend over anyone else.

"I think the author felt sorry for you," Chouji shrugged across from him, bag of chips inexplicably gone. He was also, Shikamaru noted with dawning horror, about several hundred pounds smaller than he was a few seconds ago. "Must be one of those ones that can't stand not having a happy ending for everyone."

"And is completely incapable of taking you seriously," Shikamaru had to shut his eyes against the horror, but that only helped him remember the last time he'd seen Chouji that skinny. "I didn't think this was an AU."

"What?" Chouji sounded confused for a minute. Then he obviously got it because his normally cheerful friend's voice fell flat, "Oh."

Why? Why did the fangirls do this!? _Looks cuter_ his ass! A skinny Chouji was just not right, and brought back way too many painful memories for both of them. Skinny didn't equal cute to Shikamaru, it equaled slow death by metabolism breakdown. There was nothing cute in that!

"I got it," Chouji sounded genuinely pissed. "Guess it's not an AU, the author just forgot that I'm not that small. Again."

Shikamaru cautiously opened his eyes. His friend was back to normal, and looked as pissed as he sounded. Chouji's face was bright red and his tight smile showed a lot of grit teeth. Shikamaru grimaced, he hadn't seen his friend this angry since that one fic where Ino had been forced to call him a fat bastard.

He's pretty sure even the author felt the rage rolling off of _both_ his teammates, because that particular fic had never been finished. Much to all of their relief.

"Well," Shikamaru felt a wave of heat crawl up his face. It was an unnatural and distinctly uncomfortable feeling. He slid his right hand across the table and laced his finger's through Chouji's own hand. "I love you just the way you are."

Chouji blushed, but his eyes --when he looked at Shikamaru-- were bright and beautiful. "I love you too."

They sat that way for a second, staring into each other's eyes meaningfully. Saying and hearing a thousand thoughts they'd never expressed before but shared in the silent way that was the basis of their friendship before and now would be the same for their love.

The world wavered around the edges of his vision, and abruptly became clearer and more real than it had been for a few days.

"Shit!" Shikamaru yanked his hand back, scowling as he inspected the burned sleeve and skin underneath. "Is it really too much to ask for them to remember there's a hot _grill_ in the middle of these damn tables?"

"Yeah," Chouji answered as he reached for a few strips of pork. "At least it's over now."

"Yeah," Shikamaru speared a piece of meat that now looked like pork and, after a thoughtful pause to study it, even tasted like cooked pork. "But only for now."

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Shikamaru wants the authors to know that hate really isn't all that troublesome.

Chouji wants the authors to know that, while he's not fat, he also isn't some little anorexic stick.

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End file.
